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Friday, 3 February 2017

1974

I spent the other weekend with the Secret Poets on a writing retreat. It was both great fun and very productive. Here's a poem that came from one of the writing workshops. We had to focus on a specific year and try to put ourselves back there in the moment. It was surprisingly easy to do once I got going. We were asked to write down a sentence in response to a series of questions. The poem had to be 20 lines long.This is my take.

1974

I
spend more time on the green buses

travelling
there, or coming back

than
I do where I am going.

There
is the occasional milky coffee,

chipped
cups in bus station cafés,

windows
misted, cigarette smoke and coughing old men.

The
park is empty.

The
sun slopes through the trees,

reddens
the lake and the municipal ducks.

Winter
comes calling.

My
patch pocket, button front, black loons

are
no match for this lazy wind.

I
don't know where or what we eat,

but
we are either at The Grand, or the Beer Keller,

or
in a doorway kissing.

Once
in a while your house is empty.

I
say I love you.

I
have no idea what those words mean.

The set of answers left me with a series of images from 1974 that I wove into the above poem. I think it may be near completion.Sadly I have not been able to find any photographs from the time on my hard drive. You are presented with some photographs of the New Bridge instead.

I've been listening to Ryley Walker recently. His third album had some good write ups, though I could do without the hyperbole. Why is it we have to compare new musicians to older artists? Is it to make the job of selling them easier?Here he is playing Roundabout.